Is Napoleon "Waterloo" For Actors? Is it the Anti-Churchill

Churchill is kind of a layup role for any middle-aged rotund British actor because all he has to do is mimic the man and have an ounce of gravitas. Funnily enough, arguably the best cinematic Churchill was an American: John Lithgow.

Napoleon is a bit of an interesting case because the role itself comes with a lot of pitfalls. First off, there's centuries of propaganda skewing our perception of Napoleon himself as a squat, unkempt man. Napoleon was of average height of the time, but even to this day, people persist in calling him short, even developing the whole Napoleon complex after him. There is also a distinct look to him in portraits, which are largely unflattering. I feel like the role is a tall order (no pun intended) just because anyone trying to get to the meat of Napoleon beyond a simple parody like Bill and Ted or Time Bandits, which has only served to further that aforementioned propaganda.

Now, people seem to have their knives at the ready for Ridley Scott's take for a few reasons. Notably, the casting of Joaquin Phoenix in the role. I have no doubt Phoenix carries the tormented genius vibe that an accurate portrayal of Napoleon requires, but Phoenix looks distinctly unlike our mental perception of Napoleon. More to the point, he's playing Napoleon across several decades, most of which are far younger than what Joaquin currently is, so already he's had a disadvantage of believability there. It may not be as distracting as, say, De Niro playing a 30-year-old in The Irishman, but it's still going to be a distraction regardless of the caliber of the work. Phoenix has to overcome that on top of being convincing as Napoleon in general. I trust in Ridley Scott to know what he's doing in this regard, because of his last collaboration with Phoenix, and indeed in the clip here I don't think Phoenix is bad at all. But again, it's going to be hard to see him as anything other than Joaquin Phoenix as Napoleon because we have a distinct mental image of the latter which Phoenix doesn't really resemble.

Phoenix is on track to become the most overrated actor of all time, next to Brando, though he's better than non-Godfather Brando.

I thought Phoenix was awful in the snippets we see in the trailer. Maybe he'd be better in the actual film.

Kirby also feels like a miscast. Josephine was older than Napoleon, for one.

This is probably going to be a reputation damager for Phoenix. Playing one of the most famous figures in History and failing on this big a scale would hurt anyone. He was also miscast as Jesus in "Mary Magdalene" but he got away with it because that got buried and nobody saw or even heard of it. That won't be the case this time. Sure, he's got Joker 2 coming but is that even a good thing in the long run? He's been flirting with typecasting and self-parody for a while now (Beau is Afraid certainly didn't help on that front).